9.30am: Assuming we get through the next few months without anything extraordinary taking us all by surprise, there are only two big political events between now and the general election and one of them is about to take place at 12.30pm today.

The publication of election manifestos does not really count (because they rarely contain anything important that has not been trailed) and the budget, the other big event, will not take place until next spring (assuming it takes place at all; a March election would kill it off). That leaves the pre-budget report, which Alistair Darling will delivering in the Commons this afternoon straight after prime minister's questions.

It has been described as the most political budget (the PBR is, in effect, a mini-budget) that any chancellor will have delivered for years. Commentators always says things like this, but this year there is more probably more truth in the claim than usual. Darling has to assure the markets that he has got a credible plan for bringing Britain's deficit under control, while at the same time persuading the voters that they would be better off voting Labour at the election.

To use a fairly crude analogy, his team are 3-1 down with 10 minutes to go and he's been asked to take a penalty. That's the kind of pressure he's under. If he gets it right, Labour won't necessarily win. But if he misses – in other words, if he announces measures that somehow backfire, politically or ecnomically – he could lose the match.

I'll be liveblogging throughout the day. I'll start soon with some of the best pre-PBR reporting in the papers as we wait to hear from the chancellor later on.

9.30am: Assuming we get through the next few months without anything extraordinary taking us all by surprise, there are only two big political events between now and the general election and one of them is about to take place at 12.30pm today.

The publication of election manifestos does not really count (because they rarely contain anything important that has not been trailed) and the budget, the other big event, will not take place until next spring (assuming it takes place at all; a March election would kill it off). That leaves the pre-budget report, which Alistair Darling will delivering in the Commons this afternoon straight after prime minister's questions.

It has been described as the most political budget (the PBR is, in effect, a mini-budget) that any chancellor will have delivered for years. Commentators always says things like this, but this year there is more probably more truth in the claim than usual. Darling has to assure the markets that he has got a credible plan for bringing Britain's deficit under control, while at the same time persuading the voters that they would be better off voting Labour at the election.

To use a fairly crude analogy, his team are 3-1 down with 10 minutes to go and he's been asked to take a penalty. That's the kind of pressure he's under. If he gets it right, Labour won't necessarily win. But if he misses – in other words, if he announces measures that somehow backfire, politically or ecnomically – he could lose the match.

I'll be liveblogging throughout the day. I'll start soon with some of the best pre-PBR reporting in the papers as we wait to hear from the chancellor later on.

9.30am: Assuming we get through the next few months without anything extraordinary taking us all by surprise, there are only two big political events between now and the general election and one of them is about to take place at 12.30pm today.

The publication of election manifestos does not really count (because they rarely contain anything important that has not been trailed) and the budget, the other big event, will not take place until next spring (assuming it takes place at all; a March election would kill it off). That leaves the pre-budget report, which Alistair Darling will delivering in the Commons this afternoon straight after prime minister's questions.

It has been described as the most political budget (the PBR is, in effect, a mini-budget) that any chancellor will have delivered for years. Commentators always says things like this, but this year there is more probably more truth in the claim than usual. Darling has to assure the markets that he has got a credible plan for bringing Britain's deficit under control, while at the same time persuading the voters that they would be better off voting Labour at the election.

To use a fairly crude analogy, his team are 3-1 down with 10 minutes to go and he's been asked to take a penalty. That's the kind of pressure he's under. If he gets it right, Labour won't necessarily win. But if he misses – in other words, if he announces measures that somehow backfire, politically or ecnomically – he could lose the match.

I'll be liveblogging throughout the day. I'll start soon with some of the best pre-PBR reporting in the papers as we wait to hear from the chancellor later on.

9.38am: David Cameron has told Sky he thinks the chancellor will deliver a "pre-election" report, rather than a pre-budget one.

The central fact of this pre-budget report is the massive size of our deficit. it is the biggest in our peacetime history. It is the biggest deficit that this government's incompetence has given us. We need to see early action about tackling it, but if all you have is promises about the future, then you are not dealing with the big, dark cloud hanging over our economy. This ought to be a day of reckoning, but I fear it will be a pre-election report, not a pre-budget report.

Chris Giles and Sam Jones have a story about the one-off bonus tax, which Lord Mandelson was defending on BBC News this morning. They say it will only raise hundreds of millions of pounds, not billions, and that Darling will say that he is using the money to fund measures to help the unemployed. But they also say that the link will be "entirely notional and done for presentational purposes". The Treasury hates hypothecation - pledging tax revenues for a particular purpose. According to Treasuy lore, raising money and spending money are, and should be, quite separate functions.

9.57am: The Times is carrying a piece by Vincent Cable in which the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman says Darling should do a Roy Jenkins:

Jenkins, it will be remembered, inherited Harold Wilson's devalued "pound in your pocket" entering what he called a "long, dark Treasury winter". He told the Cabinet that the situation was "extremely menacing". So it is today, after an even deeper devaluation of the pound and with a far more serious structural budget deficit. Jenkins pursued fiscal discipline at the expense of short-term popularity and was blamed for Labour's defeat in 1970 although he probably did help to avoid an electoral bloodbath.

There's another interesting line in the article. Cable says public sector workers should receive pay rises worth a maximum of £400 a year, or £8 a week, for the next two year. That's quite clever. It's progressive - £8 a week is worth a lot more to a binman than to a quangocrat - and it's a more subtle and less draconian version of the one-year pay freeze proposed by the Tories.

10.03am: We haven't heard much yet about what Darling is going to say about public sector pay, but, if he does address the subject, this could be one of the most important features of the speech. With the Tories committed to freezing the pay of most public sector workers, Labour must be tempted to turn this into a dividing line. Cable could be on to something. (See 9.57am)

10.09am: Sky are showing footage of a stunt that the Tories have been performing on Westminster Green this morning. They called it the G8 race to recovery and had runners, dressed up to represent all the G8, ambling towards a finishing line. At the back the UK figure, wearing a Gordon Brown mask, staggered way behind holding a huge pretend iron ball labelled "debt". They were trying to make the point that Britain is the only G8 country still in recession and blaming Brown for running up too much debt.

Unfortunately, they seem to have got debt and deficit muddled up. Britain does have a monstrously large deficit (the amount it is borrowing annually to fund the gap between the amount it is spending and the amount it is raising through taxation). But the debt (the amount UK plc owes because of all the money it has borrowed over the years) is actually relatively low by G8 standards.

10.20am: BBC News has just said that Darling is going to announce a household boiler scrappage scheme in the PBR. It wil work in the same way as the car scrappage scheme. In other words, if you order a new boiler, you will qualify for some kind of discount. New boilers are normally more fuel efficient than old ones, and so I presume this will be presented as a green measure.

10.28am: This is Ken Clarke, the shadow business secretary, on the proposed one-off tax on bankers' bonuses. (See 9.42am for more)

It's all tinsel really - because they will pay themselves in other ways. It's just the sort of stuff that Gordon and Peter have insisted the chancellor, who they didn't want to be chancellor, put in.

But the Mirror did get the boiler scoop. (See 10.20am) It says people will be offered £300 if they scrap their boiler.

10.37am: The Indie (paper version) is leading with "Exodus of the bankers", highlighting Bob Diamond's warning about financial whizz kids fleeing the UK. That may be a bit premature. Mandelson said this morning that he was confident that that was not going to happen and, if the bonus tax (which won't be levied on individuals) only raises a few hundred million, then it's unlikely to worry firms like Goldman Sachs. Denis Healey once committed himself to a tax increase that would provoke "howls of anguish" from the wealthy. This isn't Darling's approach at all. It's too early to tell, but it's very possible that by this evening he will be facing complaints from Labour for not being more robust with the bankers.

10.56am: Good question from pseudosp1n in the comments about the bonus tax.

If it's a one off what's to stop the banks defering awarding the bonuses for a year?

I think the best preparation for [today's PBR] is to look at what Alistair Darling said in his pre-budget report on 24 November last year. From the present perspective it is a remarkable document in that just about everything in it is, I'm afraid, so wrong as to be almost comical in its inaccuracy.

Thus, the economic forecast for this year was that Britain's economy would shrink by between 0.75 and 1.25 per cent. We don't have final figures but looks as though it will have declined by about 4.5 per cent. The budget deficit for the present year was forecast to be £118bn. In the subsequent budget this was increased to £175bn and current market estimates range between £180m and £200m. The pre-budget report announced the cut in VAT to 15 per cent for 13 months but this was to be clawed back by an increase in the top rate of income tax to 45 per cent from April 2011; now it is 50 per cent from April 2010. Borrowing was supposed to peak at 57 per cent of GDP in 2013-14. It reached 59.2 per cent last month and it is hard to see the peak being much below 100 per cent of GDP.

We all make mistakes and the depth of the recession has been more serious than most of us expected late last year. But the UK economy has been in the middle of the pack as far as the depth of the recession is concerned: worse than the US and France, not quite as bad as Germany or Italy. Where we have been far worse than everyone else is in the scale of public borrowing. The government cannot control the economy but it should have at least some control over its own finances.

11.05am: Harriet Harman has just told Sky that the City of London has been important "since the days of Dick Whittington". Eh? Was he a bond trader? Or perhaps he was in equities?

11.11am: Will the Tories accept the bonus tax? Yes. The Daily Mail carries some quotes from David Cameron, who signalled yesterday that the Tories will not oppose anything Darling announces today about bankers' bonuses.

I believe in normal times, the tax system needs to be simple, predictable and give people confidence. But these are extraordinary times. It is not acceptable that taxpayer money goes into the banks and out in bonuses ... It is not necessarily true that all windfall taxes will lead to damage.

The Mail says Cameron called for a tax of at least 60% on bank bonuses above a certain level.

11.22am: Harriet Harman is on BBC News now. She's just reminded Matthew Amroliwala that Darling said (in a Guardian interview last year) this would be the worst recession for 60 years. "Everybody said that he was going far too over the top. [But] he was right."

She did not mention that the person who was most angry about Darling going over the top was Gordon Brown, who apparently rang Darling to deliver an ear-bashing after the interview appeared.

11.39am: As usual, others are also live blogging the PBR. If you get bored reading this one, you could try:

12.00pm: Sky's Glen Oglaza says, on Twitter, that Darling is going to announce an increase in national insurance.

12.02pm: In the Commons, PMQs has started. A Tory MP has just asked Gordon Brown about his claim, last week, that Spain is in the G20. (Technically it isn't, but it's a de facto member.) Does that mean "the pain in Spain is mainly in his brain?"

Brown had a wonderful reply. He knew the Tories were going to talk down Britain. "But it's a bit much them talking down Spain."

A cash-hungry chancellor could be tempted to build on plans to raise NI contributions by 0.5% from April 2011, although this could be criticised as increasing taxes on jobs as the economy emerges from recession.

Raising national insurance is effectively a tax rise. And a 0.5% increase would bring in far more than the several hundreds of millions Darling is expected to raise from the bonus tax.

12.09pm: In the Commons David Cameron is asking about Afghanistan. Darling is sitting alongside Brown looking at his PBR speech.

12.11pm: Cameron has moved on to the PBR. He has asked Brown to support Tory plans for a 5% cut in ministerial pay and a 10% cut in the size of the Commons. Brown says Cameron has "lost the art of communication but not, alas, the gift of speech."

12.17pm: The Nick Clegg exchanges are particularly acrimonious. He asks about fairness. Brown says Clegg does not know the level of the state pension. Clegg accuses him of just reading out a list. Brown says Clegg can't read out any lists of what he's done.

12.22pm: Brown says he would "regret very much" any decision to cut tax credits by £400m. He says this would affect anyone earning more than £16,000. The Tories have said that they would cut tax credits for high earners, but they claimed this would save £400m. Labour has used Treasury figures to infer that people earning more than £16,000 would lose out.

12.24pm: In a moment one of my colleagues is going to insert a fantastic gizmo into this live blog that should allow you to see what is happening to the FTSE 100 index while Darling is speaking. We've never done it before, but it should be fun - if it works.

12.36pm: There seems to be a technical problem with the gizmo. We'll just have to manage without it.

We haven't missed much. The opening of the speech is always a bit bland.

12.37pm: Darling says VAT will go back to 17.5% in January. And he says he has no other VAT measures to announce. So, no more VAT increases.

12.38pm: Darling says the Time to Pay scheme for businesses will be extended for as long as it is needed.

And he will defer the increase for corporation tax for small companies (as the Daily Mail predicted).

12.40pm: Darling confirmed that the stamp duty holiday would end in January.

He also announced the extension of a scheme to help people facing repossession for a futher six months.

12.42pm: A short spell on unemployment is not turning into a lifetime of unemployment, as happened in the early 1990s, Darling says. But the young still need more help to get them into work.

From next month no one under than 24 needs to be unemployed for more than six months before getting help with training.

In the past old people were allowed to drift into unemployment. Now the over-50s will get training and support to help them into work.

It will be easier for those over 65 to receive the working tax credit. The hours they need to work to qualify will be cut.

Government action "has made a real difference," he says.

12.44pm: Tax credits have "risen to the challenge of the downturn," he says. Some 400,000 families are on average £37 a week better off. This is proof they work "for those who doubt the value of tax credits" (ie, the Tories.

Last September inflation, on the RPI measure, was negative. That means, in theory, pensioners should not get a rise. But the pension will go up 2.5% in April, a 4% increase in real terms.

Darling also said he would cut the tax on bingo from 22% 20%. This gets a good reception.

12.47pm: Darling also said other benefits that are pegged to RPI would go up next year.

12.47pm: The economy will grow by between 1 and 1.5% next year, Darling says. In 2011 and 2012 it will grow by 3.5%.

This year the economy will contract by 4.75%

12.49pm: Darling revises down his estimate of the cost to the taxpayer of banking support from £50bn to £10bn. But he remains committed to getting all the taxpayers' money back.

That's an extra £40bn he's found to play with. That will make a difference to his forecasts.

12.50pm: Darling says borrowing will fall every year to 2013-14 to meet the deficit reduction plan.

This year borrowing will be £178bn and next year £176bn. After that it will be £140bn, before hitting £96bn in 2013-14.

12.52pm: Darling says debt as a share of GDP will peak at 78% in 2014-15. He says this will be in line with other economies.

12.53pm: The other debt figures are 56% of GDP this year and 65% next year.

12.54pm: Darling says two thirds of the measures announced in the PBR will come from existing budgets.

Businesses have reacted to the uncertainty by repaying loans. That's why net lending is down.

He will announce details of a capital growth fund shortly.

12.55pm: The BBC's Stephanie Flanders says the fact that there is only a small change in borrowing figures is impressive given what the economy has gone through.

12.56pm: Darling says he will support £160m of public and private investment in low carbon projects.

He will also double the commitment to investing in carbon capture and storage. This will make the UK a world leader in this field.

The role out of smart meters will be completed in 2020. Already 230,000 homes have benefited from the warm front scheme. An extra £200m will be available to promote energy efficiency in homes.

He's onto boilers now. He says his scheme will help 1250,000 homes.

People with wind turbines at home who sell power to the national grid will be able to do so tax free.

And drivers with electric cars will be exempt from car tax for five years.

12.59pm: Darling says rail modernisation programmes will continue, including a scheme between Liverpool, Manchester and Preston.

12.59pm: Apprenticeships have doubled since 1997, he says.

He will finance up to 10,000 undergraduates from low-income backgrounds to take up internships win careers that they might not have considered.

He confirms the plan to impose a duty on landlines to finance the extension of broadband.

Britain already has a good trackrecord in key growth industries. "This country has a remarkable record of ideas and innovation."

He wants to encourage research and investment in the pharmaceutical bio-tech industries. A 10p tax on income from UK patents will fund more research in this field.

1.02pm: Darling is now talking about "tought decisions on tax". His decisions will be taken on the basis of fairness.

No bank has not benefitted from taxpayer help.

This should be a time to for banks to rebuild their capital base. A windfall tax would make this harder. So he has rejected this.

But some banks want to pay "substantial rewards" to their staff.

From today there will be a 50% tax on any bonus worth more than £25,000. That will be paid by the bank, not the individual. This will yield just over £500m. It will pay for measures to help the young and others get back into work.

1.05pm: Darling says he will include employer pension contributions in his new pension rules (scrapping top rate tax relief for pension contributions - something he has already announced). This will only affect those earning more than £130,000.

The inheritance tax threshold will be frozen (as expected) at £325,000.

He is also freezing threshold for top rate tax from 2011, I think. This will bring more people into the top rate band.

1.08pm: On public spending, Darling says it will grow at 2.2% in 2010-11. But after that spending will have to be cut.

"We take these decisions from a position of strength," he says. This provokes much jeering.

The period ahead will be challenging. But the public services are in a better state than they have been for decades.

But, from 2011-12, public spending across the board will increase by just 0.8%. Some programmes will have to be cut altogether.

1.11pm: Darling says he needs to get the maximum value for money. This week the government has announced plans for savings worth £12bn. Assets that can be managed better by the private sector will be sold.

Today he can announced savings worth £5bn from programmes, including changes to pensions, cutting IT project, reforming legal aid, prison reform and cutting the cost of residential care.

Senior civil servants pay will be cut by £100m.

From 2011 for two years all public sector pay settlements will be capped at 1%. But the armed forces will be exempt.

1.14pm: Darling says these "hard choices" are necessary if Britain is to cut the deficit.

He pays tribute to the armed forces. For the next year a further £2.5bn will be set aside for operations in Afghanistan.

Those retiring from the force will get help from a new £5m fund to help them set up their own businesses.

1.15pm: Britain wil honour its commitment to increase aid spending to 0.7% of national income by 2013, Darling says.

1.16pm: Darling will increase employer/employee national insurance from 2011. But he will increase the starting point, so no one under £20,000 will pay. This will raise £3bn.

That's the big announcement. A modest tax rise for anyone earning more than £20,000.

1.17pm: Darling finishes saying he will extend free school meals to 500,000 children. It will lift 50,000 out of poverty, he says.

1.18pm: Darling finishes.

So the banks are paying an extra £500m. But average earners are paying an extra £3bn. Unless I've missed something, that's not particularly progressive.

1.20pm: George Osborne is replying. He picks up on the point that those earning more than £20,000 will have to pay more. Our budget deficit is higher than any other comparable country in the world.

Osborne says Darling had to restore confidence in his forecasts, show that he would tackle the deficit and promote economic recovery. He has failed on all counts, Osborne says.

He says he spotted a sleight of hand in Darling's speech. He mentioned the annual rate of contraction for the UK economy, but the total rate for other countries. The UK's total rate of contraction is 5.9%.

1.24pm: Osborne says national debt is £1.4tr, or £23,000 for every child born today.

And he says Darling is publishing "without irony or contrition" what is called a Fiscal Responsiblity Bill.

1.26pm: Osborne says Gordon Brown has taken youth unemployment to a record high.

On spending, Osborne says Darling is almost totally silent on what he will spent money on. He has achieved the almost impossible trick of "ring fencing a black hole".

The spending reivew is the "massive missing piece of the PBR". The government is "not being honest with the British people about the real price of their incompetence".

1.29pm: Osborne says every Labour government has taken this country to the brink of bankruptcy.

Osborne says "the chancellor" bet the nations finances on a never-ending property bubble. He says "chancellor", but I think he's referring to Brown.

1.32pm: Darling is replying now. But I've now got the budget pack in front of me - the set of Treasury documents the size of a telephone directory setting out all the budget smallprint - and I'm going to run through some of the key figures.

Table 1.2 is a good place to start. It says how much the various measures in the budget will cost. This is where you find out what the really significant announcements were. Often the chancellor mentions something that sounds good, but actually does not make much difference. Here we can see the figures.

Table 1.2 shows that the national insurance rise is the only really "big ticket" item in the PBR. Increasing employer NICs will raise £2.3bn in 2011 and £2.5bn in 2012. Incereasing employee NICs will raise £2bn and £2bn in those years. Those increases will be partially offset by a raising of the threshold (designed to ensure that low earners do not lose out). But these figures are much bigger than the £550m that the Treasury will raise from the bank payroll tax (as the bank bonus tax is called).

1.38pm: Vincent Cable is responding to the PBR in the Commons. He describes it has a good budget "for bingo and boilers". Good line.

1.41pm: Cable says a 1% pay rise for a low-paid manual worker is a real term cut.

Instead, there should be a flat rate across the board. He's returning to the point he made in his Times article. (See my post at 9.57am)

Unless there is fairness, the public will not accept that over the coming years there is going to be a real hard slog for the economy, Cable says.

1.45pm: The Cable joke is getting a good reception on Twitter.

1.48pm: Back in the Commons, Hazel Blears praises the PBR. She says that it reflects Labour values. But she does not seem to be bursting with enthusiasm.

1.50pm: Michael Meacher suggests that a one-off tax won't change the behaviour of the banks.

1.54pm: Here's some reaction from Miles Templeman, director general of the Institute of Directors:

The key theme of this year's PBR is prudence postponed. There must be serious doubt as to whether the government has any commitment to reducing the deficit. Yet again we see more of the same old spend spend spend story. We thought that chapter of the book was over but it seems the chancellor has ordered a re-print.

The government are right to focus on reducing unemployment but the additional National Insurance rise will directly put jobs at risk and make it even more difficult for businesses to rehire once the recovery starts. A further tax on jobs at a time like this is madness.

1.55pm: In the Commons Frank Field suggests that the failure to curb the deficit will lead to interest rate rises at some point down the line.

1.58pm: Two union leaders have issued statements welcoming the tax on bankers.

Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, says:

Action to tax bonuses paid to bankers is long overdue. It is incredible that the banks would even consider reinstating the bonuses. It is almost as if the bankers have been out to lunch for over a year and have just come back into the office. There is a cultural issue here that needs to be addressed and the public will support the government in dealing with it.

And Tony Woodley, the Unite joint general secretary, says:

The tax on bankers is welcome and must now mark the beginnings of a fairer tax regime. The recession is not over even if the bankers that caused the crisis act like it is. Measures to keep people in their homes, rebalance our economy and stimulate job creation are exactly what is needed as we face a hard year ahead. Those who can afford to contribute more, the high rollers who are preparing to pop their corks at bonus time, must play their part in paying down the debts they caused.

2.03pm: Dave Prentis, the Unison general secretary, has issued a statement saying his union won't support the two-year 1% pay cap.

Our members feel angry and betrayed. It is just not on to make nurses, social workers, dinner ladies, cleaners and hospital porters pay the price for the folly of the bankers. The people who earn most should pay the most. Instead we have the disgraceful spectacle of rich bankers threatening to leave the country if they don't get their massive bonuses.

We have no idea what inflation will be like in 2011 and beyond. Nor do we know what the future price will be of essentials such as food and fuel. We are on the same side of the street as our members and I won't let them see their living standards eroded.

2.06pm: Liam Byrne, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has just told BBC News that the bonus tax will cover bonuses paid in shares as well as those paid in tax.

Andrew Neil asks Byrne to confirm that this figures will be "shot to hell" if the government does not hit its target of 3.75% growth in 2011. Byrne says that the Treasury's forecasts are lower than the Bank of England's.

2.17pm: I've found a got piece of PBR small print - a £110m tax on workplace canteens. It's on page 34, the final page of the Treasury PBR press release booklet. The government is going to restrict a tax relief available to people who buy a workplace canteen meal from gross pay. I don't know much at all about how this relief works, but the Treasury says it is going to raise £110m in 2011 and another £110m in 2012 from cutting this relief - which suggests that some people are going to suffer signficant losses.

2.22pm: Table 1.2 in the PBR book also says that the decision to allow all Gurkhas to settle in the UK is going to cost £240m in 2010-11. That could be Nick Clegg's first big public spending achievement.

2.33pm: Here's the TUC reaction. Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, has just put out this statemen. As you can see, it's broadly supportive, but Barber is critical of the decision to impose a cap on public sector pay and he says Darling should be been "much bolder" in reforming tax.

Today the Chancellor had to maximise the chances of recovery, help the unemployed and make sure that when the time is right to close the deficit, those who did most to cause the crash and did best from the boom make their proper contribution through a fair tax system.

On the biggest decision he is right. The chancellor has ruled out big cuts in the near future. To have cut spending so soon after a serious recession would be gross economic irresponsibility. Instead he has concentrated on helping the unemployed and given a welcome boost to investment in the green technologies of the future. This is not just good for jobs, but helps rebalance the economy away from our over-reliance on finance.

But a centralised pay cap on public sector staff is unfair, inefficient and will damage long-established independent review systems – which already take affordability into account. Public sector workers – many of whom are low paid – should not have to pay the price for a crash they did nothing to cause. And we will need to study the small print to look at where the cuts the chancellor has announced will hit.

There is good news on tax. The tax on bonuses not only raises a useful amount that will help the young unemployed, but it – and other measures – begins to ask those who did so well out of the boom years and whose recklessness caused the crash to make a proper contribution, particularly through getting tough on avoidance.

But today the chancellor could have been much bolder in moving to a fundamental reform of tax where the super-rich were asked to pay their fair share. The national insurance increase will hit ordinary workers and business, though of course we welcome the exemption for those earning £20,000 or below, which is nearly half the workforce.

2.39pm: Gordon Brown is famous for his love of political dividing lines, but Darling has delivered a PBR that does not appear to have any political dividing lines in it at all. I have not found anything in it that the Conservatives will be forced, on ideological grounds, to oppose. Have I missed anything? Please let me know if I have.

2.49pm: One figure that I missed earlier. The 1% cap on public sector pay rises in 2011-12 and 2012-13 will raise £3.4bn by 2012-13.

2.54pm: More from the small print. Although Darling said the bonus tax would only apply for one year, the small print of the PBR says that this could be extended for a year if banks try to avoid it by delaying bonus payments.

The one-off bank payroll tax will apply until 5 April 2010, but the government will consider extending the period of the charge so that the tax remains in place until the relevant provisions of the financial services bill come into force. Where there is evidence of avoidance schemes being put in place, the government will take action to close those schemes.

3.03pm: This is what the PBR document says about offhsore tax evasion:

The government announces that it will legislate to ensure that those who fail to declare offshore tax liabilities will face the tough penalties attracted by deliberate tax evasion.

3.06pm: Now I've found the page listing all the assets the government is selling. Here's the list:

• The Tote - going on sale summer 2010.

• The student loans portfolio - a feasibility study to be published next spring.

• Dartford crossing - going on sale summer 2010.

• The Channel tunnel rail link - going on sale as soon as possible after December 2009.

• URENCO (a manufacturer of enriched uranium for nuclear power stations worldwide) - government to explore options for sale, "subject to security issues being addressed".

Total assets sales are supposed to raise £16bn by 2013-14.

3.17pm: The British Bankers Association does not like the bonus tax. This is from its chief executive, Angela Knight:

Viewed from abroad, those foreign banks which reward their UK staff with contractually-agreed bonuses are likely to be the hardest hit. London may well look to them now like a significantly less attractive place to build a business.

3.19pm: There's one obvious dividing line that I forgot when I wrote about this at 2.39pm: freezing the inheritance tax threshold. This is going to raise £80m next year, £170m in 2011-12 and £190m in the year after that. But this had been widely trailed (which may be why it did not register with me earlier).

3.24pm: More on boiler relief. Under the plan, up to 125,000 homes will be able to get £400 if they replace a working G-rated boiler (an inefficient one) with an energy efficient model. The government says having an efficient boiler can save a household £240 a year.

3.28pm: Compass, the Labour centre-left pressure group, has issued a statement welcoming the PBR. It has been campaigning for action to tackle excessive pay and I thought they would find the bank tax a bit timid. But Gavin Hayes, the Compass general secretary, says it's "just the sort of bold and decisive policy a Labour Government should be about - a clear signal to the country that Labour is on the side of the many not the few."

3.58pm: At Westminster we've now had some briefing on the PBR from the Tories. This is what senior figures are saying:

• They say the national insurance increase is the "tax rise under Labour that we are going to work hardest to avoid". They say Labour will not be able to it is on the side of the many not the few if anyone earning more than £20,000 gets penalised. They want to know what people earning just over £20,000 will say about being told they count as "the few".

• They think Darling has failed politically, because the PBR is neither a tough budget or a giveaway budget.

• They point out that the PBR book shows (on page 180, if you've got a copy) that the NAO does not accept the Treasury's unemployment predictions. The Treasury think the claimant count will peak at 1.75m in 2010 and then fall to 1.25m by 2013. The NAO thinks it will reach 1.91m in 2010 and hit 1.94m by 2013.

• They say the PBR documentation shows that debt will remain at more than 40% of GDP until 2030.

• They say that Darling can afford to uprate benefits by more than inflation in April 2010 because he is taking the money from funds set aside to pay for benefit increases in April 2011. That means, if the plans don't change, pensioners will get a respectable increase in April 2010 but very little the following year. One Tory wondered aloud what might be happening soon after April 2010 to explain this.

• They point out that Darling's pay rise cap would cover all public sector workers. Their one-year-pay freeze would not cover the low paid.

• They think the plans to ringfence some frontline spending would mean 10% cuts in other budgets.

4.17pm: Some useful figures from the Treasury:

• 3.9m public sector workers would be hit by the cap on pay increases.

• 10m workers would be hit by the national insurance increase.

• But 10m workers would not be hit by the national insurance increase because they earn less than £20,000.

It is a good PBR in the circumstances but by no means an excellent report. Those who participated in the joint Left Foot Forward / TUC / Labour List / Liberal Conspiracy live coverage broadly agreed with 45 per cent saying it was a "good" PBR. A further 25 per cent thought it was terrible, 15 per cent said poor, 10 per cent said OK, and 5 per cent said excellent.

Do read the whole thing. He is most critical of Darling for not finding more money for child poverty and most complimentary about the chancellor because he made the Keynesian case for budget deficits.

4.30pm: Time to call it a day. There are some budgets that change the political landscape dramatically. This does not seem to be one of them. Darling hasn't thrown away the match (to use my analogy from 9.30am). But he doesn't appear to performed any magic either. (Old-timers will point out that chancellors who seem to be performing magic often regret it. Remember 10p?) Labour MPs have rallied behind the chancellor this afternoon, but I don't detect any great enthusiasm on their side for the PBR measures and they might get more gloomy when the papers start printing those charts showing how much the national insurance increase is going to cost everyone. The Tories are still calling for far more drastic public spending cuts, but they are not telling us much about where those cuts would fall and Darling has not said anything today that will force them to clarify their intentions. As we head towards the election, the political landscape looks much the same as it did this morning.